Getting into the Zone -Living Page to collect Tips and Tricks for getting work done

I have ADD.

Its different how it manifests in different people but for me its often resulting in endless browser windows and doing things really well that I find interesting and loosing myself down the rabbit hole. And on top of my ADD I also have the gift that I’m really interested in just about everything…except sports I have learned, as my body was not built for them. (Will write an article later how we changed that) And to make it event more fun I’m a perfectionist at heart and I expect nothing short of people swooning when I present them my work or I think it was a waste of time. Making an very “interesting mix”. I could very much relate to the TED Talk from Tim Urban about the monkey being in control of the ship.

So here are my tricks to get myself into the zone.

Its all about “setting myself up for success” and eliminating stumbling blocks. They help me and I’m looking forward to hear if they help you or if you have your own tweaks that I could try to use.

Let people know your turning on Hyper Focus Mode

Set up your phone to “do not disturb mode”, let people know on Slack how long your going to be in Hyper Focus and if your going into an “batch” you might even want to set up an email auto re

Libraries, sometimes the silence is deafening

I use headphones!

Its to help me disconnect from outside distractions but its also a sign to people that I’m in the zone and should not be disturbed. So I recommend that you let people know about that and also don’t use them all the time or people will just expect that your always with them so they have not choice expect to interrupt.

I learned that using gaming music helps or movie scores helps.

Right now as I’m writing this I’m using the Final Fantasy Piano by Yusuf Afgan playlist. And as much as I love trying new things I want to stress that novelty is not what I’m looking for in the music, in fact often it can be best to find 3 songs and loop them. That way you don’t even notice the music after a while and your brain bandwidth increases.

Talking about sounds that you don’t notice.

White noise generators can be amazing and you can download free apps on Android and IOS phones but I don’t know about Nokia or BlackBerries. Feel free to let us know if you have one of those.

The New Smoking

I have an confession. I have been real self righteous against people that smoke. In my mind I associated them with being ignorant, self absorbed, environmentally unfriendly and not taking care of their health. And then I learned that many studies show the adverse effects of sitting for extended periods can be in some ways also have serious health consequences and that you can’t make up for it by going to the gym. In fact the cigarette break has an unexpected benefit that people actually stand up and think about something else as well so its refreshes the mind and the body.

And now I have stated smoking? Of course not!!! But I recognized that there was something very beneficial to those breaks so I started by setting up an alarm going off every 40 min and then 2 min later so I can stretch during that time. However that is just a guaranteed way to annoy everyone around you 😉 So my “trick” is drinking hot water with ginger and cinnamon, causing me to having to refill and drain 😛 on a regular basis. And when I stand up I stretch for 2 min to get the blood flowing.

Time to get into the zone

Now here is where I want to ask you something. I have heard various numbers about how long it takes to get into the zone and some people say that it takes at least 15 min and other people say it takes even longer. I’m wondering if my breaks are cutting into my Zone Time so I’m wondering about your experience and if you have any more tips and tricks that work well for you.

Looking forward to hear from you and I hope you have a seriously brilliant day!